Spark the Fire

by Melissa McShane

With Rokshan once more mounted, Lamprophyre launched herself into the sky, beating her wings for altitude. From that height, the river was a thread of blue against the fields of new growth, lined with bushy trees whose leaves were a dustier green than the grass. A breeze had come up, stirring the heavy air and fluttering the leaves so their white undersides flashed, dark-light-dark. The motion drew Lamprophyre’s eye to the riverbank, and to a different kind of motion, this one heavier and slower.

  “I see them,” she said, just as Rokshan said, “There they are, under the trees.”

  Lamprophyre rose higher and circled above her enemy. At that distance, wispy traces of the bandits’ thoughts brushed her mind, hard and cruel and filled with thoughts of gold—not the warm, living gold of the egg, but cold disks spilling out of cloth sacks. She understood very little of what she saw, but coin was something all the oldest stories contained. Apparently they were right about how much humans loved it.

  “What is that thing in the water? Is that a boat?” she asked. Boats were something else from stories of the past, something humans used to travel on rivers. She’d never understood why they didn’t just swim. Maybe they were as awkward in the water as dragons were.

  “Yes, and it looks like they’re loading it. The trees are in the way, so I can’t tell more than that.” Rokshan sounded frustrated. “If they get the egg on board, that’s the end of this chase.”

  “Why? I’m faster than any boat. And—” Lamprophyre’s lips curled in a smile. “I think I know how to stop them.”

  Chapter Four

  They hid behind the trees on the far side of the river. Lamprophyre couldn’t keep still, she was so agitated. Every moment that passed was one more moment for the egg to be corrupted. But her plan called for the bandits to cast off from the shore—a phrase Rokshan had taught her—so she waited, impatiently, and watched the bandits through the trees. She hissed when she saw one of them carrying a wrapped bundle the size and shape of a dragon egg, then felt embarrassed about her lapse into barbarity. Then she considered whether barbarity might not be needed in this case. She certainly intended to wreak havoc on the kidnappers.

  Beside her, Rokshan laid a hand on her arm. “It’s almost time.”

  “Then mount up.” It was getting easier, and Rokshan’s weight no longer bothered her, though she was still aware of him perched above her wings. The last bandit jumped from the bank to the boat, someone else gave a shove with a long pole, and the boat drifted into the river’s current and picked up speed. It was as fast as a fish, with a thick pole sticking up from its center that had a sheet of coarse fabric attached to it. The fabric caught the breeze as a dragon’s wing would and propelled the boat along.

  Lamprophyre scrambled on hands and feet parallel to the shore, pacing the boat until it was fully in the center of the broad river and well away from either bank. “Hold on,” she told Rokshan, and pushed off from the spongy ground.

  This time, she didn’t bother concealing herself, depending instead on speed and surprise to get the advantage of the bandits. She rose a few dragonlengths into the sky, hovered briefly to get her bearings, and as the first cries of alarm rang out, she dove at the boat and spat a great blast of fire.

  As she’d intended, it missed the boat by the barest margin and made the water on its left side steam. Screams of terror, and the sound of feet pounding the boards, warmed her heart. She drew in another breath and sent more fire over the right side of the boat, brushing its side and sending up a stink of charred wood with the cloud of steam.

  She landed near the pole and spread her wings wide as Rokshan tumbled off and away. In her deepest voice, she roared out, “Thieves! Give back what you stole!” It was for drama’s sake rather than because she believed her order would make them obey, but drama was deeply satisfying.

  A female, heavier-set than Rokshan and with dark black hair concealing the lower half of her face, hauled herself out of a square hole in the boat’s floor some distance away. She shouted, “Archers! Kill the beast!”

  Archers. That was another word Lamprophyre knew. She shut her nictitating membranes, making the world go slightly dim, as arrows plinked away at her impenetrable hide. Shoving off, she flapped a few times and dove at the female who had given the order. The female didn’t have time to move before Lamprophyre had her pinned with one of her deadly sharp claws at her throat. She instantly stilled. Lamprophyre wished she knew how to interpret human expressions to tell if she was afraid or angry. It didn’t matter. She was Lamprophyre’s prisoner.

  “Tell them to give me the egg, and I’ll spare your life,” she hissed, giving in to ancient instincts.

  Sweat beaded on the human’s forehead. “Give it the egg,” she shouted, her voice much deeper than Rokshan’s. “It’s not worth my life.”

  “Good choice,” Lamprophyre said with a smile.

  Something slapped Lamprophyre’s right haunch. Instantly the dim world turned rosy pink, and a flock of birds winged past, laughing with the voices of a hundred dragons. Lamprophyre turned her head to follow them and saw the moon hanging low in the sky, full and heavy and tinted orange. It looked like a fat orange, pebbly and rough, close enough to touch, so she reached out—

  “Lamprophyre!” Rokshan shouted.

  “I need to pluck the orange,” she said, reassuring him.

  Something cracked against the side of her face, a heavy blow that rattled her brains and made her teeth feel loose. She jerked away, blinking both sets of eyelids, and then flattened herself to the floor as the bandit chief swung a length of wood at her head again. The moon was gone, the sky was faded pale blue, and all she could hear was the rush of water past the sides of the boat and the shouts of angry, frightened humans.

  “Ow,” she said, and rose up from the floor to tackle the bandit chief. She caught the chief’s arm and wrenched the wooden beam from her grip. Tossing it aside, she threw her to the floor and put a heavy foot on her chest. The female gasped for breath, scrabbling at Lamprophyre’s foot and ankle with both hands.

  “Lamprophyre, help!” Rokshan shouted.

  She turned, not letting up on the bandit chief. Rokshan was wrestling one of the bandits for another length of wood. This one was finely carved and had a chunk of uncut sapphire half the size of Lamprophyre’s fist strapped to its tip with strips of leather. Other females—males?—circled the two, and one bandit looked like she was preparing to attack Rokshan.

  “Stones,” Lamprophyre cursed. She shoved the bandit chief hard into the floor and leaped for the bandits. Her tail whipped around and caught the nearest one, the one approaching Rokshan, below the knees, sending him to the floor. She reached for the stick Rokshan and the other bandit were fighting over.

  “Don’t touch it!” Rokshan said. “It’s a weapon. It will hurt you. Go get the egg!”

  Lamprophyre had no idea where the egg was. This plan had failed even faster than the first one had. Instead, she snatched the bandit grappling with Rokshan and shook him until he loosed his grip on the stick, then flung him overboard to sink screaming beneath the water.

  Something struck her hindquarters, and she turned to see the bandit chief once more holding the length of wood. “You’re a fool,” she said, and breathed out fire to engulf the female.

  The bandit chief screamed and dropped to the ground, beating at herself to put out the flames. Lamprophyre sneered. “That was a warning,” she said. She kicked the bandit’s weapon over the side of the boat and grabbed the bandit chief by her ankle, hauling the female up to dangle in front of her nose. “My fire can burn much hotter. Now. Last chance. Where is the egg?”

  The bandit chief appeared incapable of speech, but she waved her arms in some kind of signal. Lamprophyre looked over her shoulder. Rokshan stood behind her, brandishing the sapphire-tipped stick—that little thing, a weapon?—in a stance that said he was ready to attack anyone who approached. One of the bandits dropped into the square hole in the floor and clambered out holding the fabric-wrapped bundle. Lamprophyre to
ok it with her free arm and shoved the wrappings aside with her nose. Golden eggshell gleamed.

  “Don’t try this again,” she said to the bandit chief. She dropped her on her head, making her cry out once and then go still and silent. Lamprophyre found, looking at the innocent egg, she didn’t much care if she’d killed her. How much damage had these humans done to it? And she didn’t dare burn the ship for fear so much death terror would mark the dragonet for life.

  “Stay close,” she murmured to Rokshan. She slowly turned in a circle, her tail held ready for an attack, until she was facing the rest of the bandits. “Now mount.”

  It was fortunate Rokshan no longer needed help in mounting, because the bandits looked poised to attack her again. That they were more afraid of losing the egg than they were of dying at her claws surprised and frightened her. To cover her fear, she said, “Whatever you had in mind, forget it. You won’t take us by surprise a second time.” Tucking the egg securely under one arm, she leaped into the sky.

  “You need to kill them,” Rokshan said. “Those men and women have killed so many humans, and I’m sure they would have killed us—couldn’t you perceive their thoughts?”

  “I was blocking them so I wouldn’t be distracted. And if I burn them, the dragonet will sense their deaths, and that could…” She didn’t want to finish that sentence. It might already be too late for this egg.

  “They’ll come after you again. You dragons, I mean.”

  “We’ll be ready for them.” That, Lamprophyre was sure of.

  Chapter Five

  Nephrite was gone when they returned to the nest. Lamprophyre settled on the river bank and bent low to drink water from her cupped hand. She hadn’t realized she was thirsty until she tasted the delicious, cool water. Rokshan knelt by the river and scooped up a drink for himself. When he finished, he wiped his mouth and said, “What now?”

  “We can’t leave the egg unattended, and I don’t dare bring you back to the flight. I’m in enough trouble as it is. I’ll return you to your people and then take the egg back.”

  “Won’t that be dangerous?”

  “It’s already been hurt. A few hundred beats exposed to our thoughts can’t make a difference.” She eyed the stick, which lay on the ground near Rokshan’s feet. “And what am I supposed to do with that?”

  “It’s not safe for the dragons, and I don’t think humans should have it either. But breaking it could be a bad idea.”

  Lamprophyre resisted the urge to kick it into the river. “Why is that?”

  “Artifacts like that one are full of magical energy. Breaking it might release that energy explosively. It needs to be safely drained and then broken.” Rokshan picked it up and put a hand over the sapphire, squeezing it as if it were a fruit he could crush for its juice. “I don’t know why it doesn’t work on me. Somebody made this to hurt dragons. But nobody knew dragons existed until a few months ago, so why would it exist at all?”

  “Will it hurt me if I touch just the stick?” Lamprophyre held out a hand.

  Rokshan extended it toward her as if he expected it to discharge a pulse of magical energy that would kill them both. Lamprophyre closed her hand around the wooden shaft. “I don’t feel anything,” she said. “So it’s just the stone that does the damage.”

  “That still makes it dangerous.”

  “Less dangerous for us to keep it where we can see it.” She knelt for Rokshan to mount. “We should hurry. Princes are important, yes? So we don’t want your people getting upset and starting a war.”

  “I’m not that important. I’m the youngest of my father’s children and therefore redundant.”

  Lamprophyre shot into the air. “Your father’s children? Do human males give birth?” Rokshan had sounded uncharacteristically grim just then.

  “No, I meant that my father has had two wives. Elini died in a boating accident when her youngest was only a baby, and Father married my mother Satiya shortly after that. She had two children, and I’m the youngest.”

  “You sound as if that’s a problem.”

  Rokshan laughed, though it didn’t sound very cheerful. “My father and I don’t get along. Look, I think I see my company—there, to the left.”

  Lamprophyre thought about pressing Rokshan for more details, but decided it was none of her business what humans did in their families. How much better to be part of the flight, with your parents having no more or less influence on you than anyone else. A pang of ridiculous homesickness flashed through her, and she hugged the egg closer to her chest and thought calming thoughts. She wasn’t as effective as the egg’s father would be, but she had to be better than nothing.

  She alit a dozen dragonlengths from the humans and leaned over to let Rokshan off. “Thank you,” she said. “It wouldn’t have worked without you. I’ll be sure to tell Hyaloclast that.”

  “Good luck,” Rokshan said.

  He waved a farewell as she leapt into the sky. Another gesture humans and dragons had in common. Language, gestures, some memories of a distant past…Hyaloclast was right; none of that was enough to give them a shared foundation to work from.

  Lamprophyre wheeled and flew off toward home. She thought Rokshan might still be waving, but she didn’t look back to find out.

  A twelveday later, Lamprophyre reclined on the rocky cliffside outside the caverns and soaked up the sun, so comforting in contrast to the brisk wind blowing across her scales. She needed that comfort to ease the tension that pulsed through the flight like a living thing, a snake gripping each dragon in its coils. Fluorspar and Nephrite’s egg had begun hatching before dawn, and while no one would intrude on their joyous moment, everyone longed to know who this dragonet would turn out to be.

  Lamprophyre felt inappropriately guilty every time she thought of the dragonet. If not for her and Rokshan, it would be lost to the flight entirely, but suppose she’d taken too long, and the bandits’ corruption wouldn’t have taken hold if she’d been faster? What if her passing overhead had been the distraction that had left Nephrite vulnerable to the magic stick? They were all nonsensical thoughts, but she still burned with humiliation over the incident that had brought Rokshan to the flight, and inappropriate guilt seemed part of that.

  She heard someone scrambling rapidly up the cliffside, climbing rather than flying, and opened her eyes to see Bromargyrite of her own clutch pull himself over the ledge and disappear into Hyaloclast’s cavern. Bromargyrite was the new dragonet’s sibling, Fluorspar and Nephrite’s previous egg, and while he wouldn’t have been allowed to be present for the hatching, he would have been close by. Lamprophyre sat up and unfurled her wings, focusing on each muscle to keep from leaping into the air and flying to where the dragonet was.

  Hyaloclast emerged, followed closely by Bromargyrite. She walked to the edge and stepped off, extending her wings before she hit the ground and swooping away. That was the signal for the rest of the flight to follow, at a respectful distance, of course. Lamprophyre lagged behind. If something was wrong with the dragonet, she didn’t want to know about it until she had to.

  The hatching cavern was the largest one in the mountains, big enough to hold twelve dragons at a time and high enough that a dragon could fly from one end to the other without so much as brushing a wingtip against the walls. Its mouth, on the other hand, was too narrow for more than one dragon to enter at once. Lamprophyre, waiting outside with those of the flight too slow to find a place inside, reflected that it would be easy to trap dragons inside the hatching cavern with a few well-placed boulders. It was a thought she wouldn’t have had before facing humans and being touched by their terrible weapon.

  She’d explained the magic stick to Hyaloclast as best she could without demonstrating it on anyone; the effect had been so terribly disorienting she couldn’t bring herself to inflict it on others. Hyaloclast had listened without saying anything until Lamprophyre had started repeating herself, then said, “I will warn the others, and put it where no one can easily reach it.”

&
nbsp; “But suppose humans find it again?”

  Hyaloclast had regarded her with amusement. “No human will ever get that far,” she had said, and that was the end of the conversation. Lamprophyre wasn’t sure the queen’s confidence was totally warranted—humans had to have made the stick, because it wasn’t something that had sprung fully-formed out of the earth, and who was to say they might not make another?—but she knew well that dragons were more than a match for ordinary human weapons, and she didn’t feel like arguing with the dragon queen.

  A couple of dragons emerged from the hatching cavern, and Lamprophyre leaned forward, eager despite herself. Neither of them looked concerned or afraid, but they also didn’t have the cheerful expressions of dragons who’d just welcomed a new addition to the flight. Lamprophyre subsided. That wasn’t so awful, if they weren’t upset. The dragonet probably wasn’t deformed, or mentally deficient, or—she made herself stop going over the list of possible ailments she’d generated and refined in the last twelveday.

  More dragons filed out, making way for others to enter. Chrysoprase stopped near Lamprophyre. “She’s not what anyone expected,” she said, “but it’s not so bad. You saved her, Lamprophyre. We’re all grateful for that.”

  “She’s not corrupted?” Lamprophyre asked.

  Chrysoprase frowned. “I wouldn’t call it corrupted, exactly. But nobody expected her to be completely untouched by her experience. Just remember how many twelvedays she was under Nephrite’s influence alone. A few thousand beats spent with humans, even vicious humans, isn’t enough to completely negate that.” She patted Lamprophyre’s shoulder. “Go on in. See what you think.”

  Lamprophyre hesitated in front of the cavern until a few more dragons emerged. Before she could let fear stop her, she ducked her head and entered the cavern, folding her wings closely along her back though there was plenty of room. A moment of darkness, as her body blocked the sunlight, and then her eyes adjusted to the luminescence filling the chamber. Two dragons came toward her, murmuring to each other. Lamprophyre stepped aside to let them exit, then walked forward to the cavern’s far end, where a hollowed-out platform of stone rose above the smooth floor. Fluorspar and Nephrite flanked it, settled back on their haunches as if the hatching had exhausted them. Hyaloclast sat nearby, towering over the new parents. Her body obscured Lamprophyre’s view of the stone nest, but she seemed relaxed.